4 industries that are making the best use of blockchain technology Posted on : Sep 26 - 2017

As blockchain evolves, several industries are poised to take advantage of the distributed ledger technology. Here are four examples of how the blockchain can be used to get work done.

Blockchain could revolutionize the way business is conducted across several industries—but it isn't necessarily right for every company, Derek Martin, a cloud solution architect at Microsoft, explained in a session at Microsoft Ignite in Orlando on Tuesday.

Blockchain, originally developed as a supporting technology for cryptocurrency Bitcoin, is a distributed ledger that tracks transactions, connecting them to other transactions nearby and securely encrypting the information. This ledger technology has proved to be the larger value of cryptocurrencies, with implications for almost every industry, not just tracking digital currency.

The business value-add of blockchain is expected to grow to more than $176 billion by 2025, and to exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030, according to Gartner.

However, many companies that bought into the technology's hype faced challenges to adoption, including corporate muscle memory, technology maturity and security, enterprise needs, a fragmented tech landscape, and unclear ROI, Martin said.

"We are starting to address large-scale business problems," Martin said. For example, Microsoft is currently working with Accenture and the United Nations to prevent human trafficking by using blockchain to provide a legal form of identification for 1.1 billion people worldwide. And in August, Microsoft announced the Coco Framework, an open source system that allows businesses to build scalable, secure blockchain networks, and better leverage the technology to get work done.

The following four industries have the strongest blockchain use cases as the technology currently stands, according to Martin:

1. Finance

The financial industry can use blockchain to redesign costly legacy workflows, improve liquidity, and free up capital, Martin said. The technology can also help reduce infrastructure costs, increase transparency, reduce fraud, and improve execution and settlement times, he added.

Multiple governments in small nations are also examining blockchain's potential use for replacing national currency. View More